Socrates said: "A happy man was well daemonized".

As I look back over my life, I have to agree with him. I am filled with happiness as I write this note and I have had my share of daemons along the way. In fact, I lived in a state of fear for years.

But why? What was I afraid of? I have lived through family losses, job losses, money losses, property losses, relationship losses and self esteem losses, and here I am writing this as a happy man. The answers didn't come from someone else, they came from within me. We all know Roosevelt's words about fear, but they really didn't register with me until I started to dig within me. I had secrets lots of secrets, that I kept hidden from myself. I used so much energy trying to hide these events, that I blocked myself from seeing the true me. This blocked energy manifested itself in many ways; sickness, addictions, fantasies and low self worth to name a few. My life was a secret that overshadowed the good that surrounded me.

The psychology books told me I had to face my fears, for they are a reality I created from my own beliefs of good and bad, right and wrong. Beliefs that were so strong that I was willing to physically destroy myself rather than face these secret demons. My focus consciousness kept me in a state of fear with no weapon used other than my thoughts. I had closed off a part of myself, I buried my secrets in fear, the evil I had created was the cemetery.

I decided I wanted to change. I wanted to feel better. I wanted my emotions back. The time had come for me to find a solution. I wanted a new life.

One sunny Tennessee morning I sat in the garden among all the living things that had no secrets; the trees, plants, birds, and insects and looked around me. I felt their freedom, their honesty, their wholeness. So one by one I reached in my coffin of secrets starting with the very first one I buried so many years ago and dug it up. There it was right where I remembered it, I gently put my thoughts around it and kissed it and forgave it. That morning, I went through several years of my life accepting all I had hidden and forgiving myself for doing so. Like magic, my energy level seemed to explode and a great weight was lifted from my body. I cried, joyful emotion overtook me.

There were many days like that day, each one bringing me closer to my happiness, each one reconnecting me to a self that was hidden.

I know now there are no secrets. I can't hide from myself and certainly can't hide from others. What I can do is accept myself as a spirit having a human experience in order to be a grander version of who I really am, a soul connected to all life in truth, freedom and love.